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Chapter 3

Gnasher felt like an idiot in the costume Packerhound had given him. The Poison Nickels were members of an elite warrior class back on Hull and here they stood, frocked in so much color and splendor that the whole scene threatened to burn Gnasher’s eyes from their stalks.

Stig had loaded his exotic instruments onto the chroma green stage in the video studio. As the Poison Nickels stood behind their instruments, Packerhound adjusted the settings on all five of the studio’s cameras, high-end devices Gaar had looted from an intergalactic bootleg hyper-wave station. He mixed the color levels, trimmed the apertures, and checked each camera for exposure and focus.

Unlike Gnasher, Winkle loved the long robe Packerhound had given him. He spun behind his instrument, causing a bell of fabric to expand around him. He couldn’t erase the smile from his face. In a way, he felt guilty for having any pleasure at all with his race so close to extinction. But even in the war-riddled ice caverns back home, he had made it a point to find pleasure in even the most dire circumstances. So he spun again and watched the fabric, so brightly colored, twirl.

Packerhound stepped behind a control station where he could remotely adjust the cameras on the fly and edit the video feeds from each of the devices in real time. He had, with the help of Winkle and Chi, gathered a collection of shots, footage from planets that resembled Hull. They’d found scenes of devastation, of smoke billowing from burning forests, of fire shooting from cavities in the rock, of weapons being loaded and discharged, of furry creatures that looked similar to Voles crawling all over each other to get at husked out carrion. At first, Packerhound had worried that the series of shots Winkle and Chi had selected would be too morose. But Chi insisted that they needed to get as close to the truth as possible.

Packerhound tested each camera by working a series of joysticks on the console. He made a few adjustments to the sensitivity settings. He loaded the background footage to replace the green field all around the Poison Nickels. The studio worked perfectly, keying out the Poison Nickels and placing them in a convincing environment of war, boiling pots, weapons, fire, and chaos.

After reviewing the discography of the Dave Clark Five, Packerhound had argued that the Poison Nickels needed an uplifting song to contrast against the clips of war and devastation. In the end, Packerhound and Chi had settled on Everybody Get Together, a song that promoted love and peace.

Next, it came to Stig to re-engineer the song to make it resemble the sound he expected to come from the Poison Nickels. Stig isolated the vocal tracks from the Dave Clark Five rendition and remixed the back tracks, using some of Dave Clark’s instrumentation, but mingled it with sound from the instruments he had created, the instruments the Poison Nickels would actually play should they get the gig at the Collundrome.

After a few days of prep, even Gnasher found a small amount of confidence that what they were doing was not a complete waste of time. But he still hated the wardrobe that Packerhound had selected.

“In order for this to work, you must play your instruments with some amount of convincing proficiency,” Packerhound said.

“We’ve been practicing every spare moment we have,” Winkle said. “And I have to say, I rather like the sound of the ToneWeaver,” so Stig had named Winkle’s instrument, “I find it soothing.” He granted Stig a look of approbation.

Stig smiled back at Winkle.

“Above all things, this must feel original. No doubt, there will be a small faction who has heard of the Dave Clark Five. But I think we have reworked the sound enough that even they will consider this a viable interpretation of the music,” Packerhound said.

“Let’s just do this thing,” Gnasher said, wanting to get out of his brightly colored robe.

“Everybody ready to tape in five ... four ... three...” Packerhound counted off the last two numbers silently, indicating them with one of his four fingered hands.

A live taping of the Poison Nickel’s cover of Everybody Get Together commenced. Packerhound ignored the copious amount of mistakes made by the Nickels as they fumbled through the intro of the song. They looked like they were playing with accuracy; that was all that mattered. They would have to spend the rest of transit practicing or they didn’t have a prayer of landing even the smallest gig.

Dave Clark’s voice, heavily disguised by filters, took the center of the music. Goorn flitted her wings as she issued her tocsin into the TocsinAnun--another instrument designed by Stig. Goorn had spent more time with her instrument than the others. She worked the processor controls almost expertly.

Although her actual tocsin would not be heard on the demo soundtrack, Packerhound thought he could see how a certain faction might latch onto her enigmatic voice. The Poison Nickel’s sound would take some getting used to, but if they committed time to practicing, there might be a place for their music.

Goorn sang along with the Dave Clark Five’s lyrics. Her face filled the screen, backed by a lush forest. A handful of jungle monkeys swung on vines, arching their way through the trees with nimble grace.

“Love is but a song to sing

Feels the way we’ll die.”

One of the jungle monkeys missed a vine and plummeted to the ground. The camera followed the monkey and found it jittering in the dirt, its neck broken. The monkey went still.

The camera tilted upward and settled on a mountain peak, capped with snow. Packerhound worked the color wheel on the background shot and heated up the mountain until it looked like it was on fire.

“You can make the mountains ring,

Or make the angels cry.”

The camera tilted to the sky. It found a white bird flitting its way through the air. Packerhound ran the footage through a filter, turning the white bird into an animated shape. The camera zoomed in on the bird’s face just as a tear fell from its eye. The camera’s point-of-view moved in over the drop and followed it as it descended toward the ground. Hundreds more drops joined the white bird’s tear as it began to rain.

The tears transformed into miniature fire bombs. As they struck the ground, tendrils of flame arched away from them, catching the forest on fire all around the fallen monkey.

“Though the bird is on the wing,

And you may know not why.”

The camera settled to the ground. The Poison Nickels band appeared, backed by a scene of fire and devastation. They played their instruments using plenty of emotion and movement, as directed by Packerhound. Goorn went into the song’s chorus.

“Oh! Come on you people now.

Smile on your brother.

Everybody get together.

Try to love one another right now.

Come on you people now.

Smile on your brother.

Everybody get together.

Try to love one another right now.”

The camera left the Poison Nickels and flew through the flames, ducking burning trees and charred vines. A few woodland creatures, perishing in the heat, ran for cover, fleeting in the peripheral view of the lens.

The camera emerged from the flames and flew up a shallow rise where it found a hoard of scurrying Voles, their mongrel bodies writhing over each other, claws in backs and faces, a mad bramble of whipping tails, black pin-head eyes and rage. The camera flew over the hoards of rodents and looked down a vista into a valley riddled with ice and caves.

“Some may come and some may go.

He will surely pass.”

The Voles rushed down the rise, the camera tracking them as they tumbled over each other, madly seeking purchase on rocks, grass, bushes, and each other.

The camera rushed ahead, leaving the Voles behind. It entered one of the cave mouths and tracked its way through a tunnel until it settled on a 3-D animated family of Ice Beetles. The father of the family stood in front of his wives and hundreds of children, resolute, ready for the Vole rush.

“When the one that let us heal,

Returns for us at last.

We are but in the morning sunlight,

Fading in the grass.”

As the Voles overtook the family of animated Ice Beetles, the camera veered off into another ice tunnel and found the Poison Nickels riding a floating transport through the tortuous cavern tube, playing their instruments.

Packerhound smiled at the effectiveness of the shot. The video demo was shaping up.

“Oh! Come on you people now.

Smile on your brother.

Everybody get together.

Try to love one another right now.

Yes! Come on you people now.

Smile on your brother.

Everybody get together.

Try to love one another right now.”

The Poison Nickels, still riding their floating transport, popped out of the cave into an alien jungle.

“Come on you people now.

Smile on your brother.

Everybody get together.

Try to love one another right now.”

The music tailed off. As the final refrains faded, Packerhound stood up from his editing station to give his last piece of direction. “Everybody look up.”

The Poison Nickels turned their heads upward and looked at the ceiling of the studio. Packerhound worked one of the joysticks, panning the camera up and away from the band. He smiled as he watched the final shot close the video. The camera continued its upward movement. A comet traced by, syncing with a final hiss from Winkle’s ToneWeaver.

Everyone stood still. Packerhound kept his eyes on the monitor, smiling so wide that he could feel the muscles at the edges of his mouth twitch. “And cut.”

The Poison Nickels fell out of pose.

Gnasher immediately tore off his robe and tossed it behind him.

“Brilliant,” Packerhound said. “You are brilliant. Now if you can learn to play those instruments, you just might have a chance at the Collundrome.”

“How soon can we get a demo to Arrowheart?” Chi asked.

“I think I have a way to bypass Arrowheart’s slush pile and get it right on his desktop.”

“Great. Get it out as soon as you can,” Chi said.

As Packerhound rewound the rough edit and began to make a few modifications, the Poison Nickels left the video studio. They headed back to their quarters. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the Collundrome, and they had to practice their instruments.